JIWilliams -GOAWAY! Do you want new Forum upgrade?

now that I've figured out that this isn't OUR John Williams, will someone please stop this moron from posting?

its a bot jake.

The forum software is badly out of date. If you look on the UBB threads website, you'll see they are up to version 7.3 or something.

The registration process doesn't force the user to interpret a graphically distorted character sequence. You can write a bot to do the whole thing from registration to posting garbage.

I know...I was just venting.

We do have access to the upgrades, but every time I have upgraded, every one really gets upset about it.., no one likes changes. <img src="http://www.catsailor.com/forums/images/graemlins/tongue.gif" alt="" />

Give me the word and I will update. Keep in mind, sometimes improvements are really not improvements, i.e., my 1990 Civic gets 49 mpg, the new Civic is under 30, yet it is upgraded. <img src="http://www.catsailor.com/forums/images/graemlins/crazy.gif" alt="" />
Rick

Hi Rick,
Seeing that LTHector has taken JIWiliams' place, my vote is to do the upgrades, hopefully we, the live sailors of the forum will adapt and accept the changes.

Thanks, Ryan

yeah, I can't tell you the pain I went through when I was only a couple months late updating the blog software on my website. It's only a matter of time before someone exploits some vulnerability in the older software.

Yeah Jake and I have had to deal with hax0rz screwing with our sites.

New software is always the way to go.

Rick:

I'm sure if you put it to a vote (using the Vote options) you'll get an overwhelming support for it!

Hey, and we don't even need McCain to show to a debate on it <img src="http://www.catsailor.com/forums/images/graemlins/wink.gif" alt="" />

forum upgrades should go without the membership even noticing it. You are upgrading the forum, not the database which is where the post and user accounts are stored.

Also if you delete the user directly from the database all there post and threads get deleted immediately.

Well, as of 4:28 today this forum and site has been under full attack from these bots.

Bots from Area 51?

John Williams turned into a robot? Mr Roboto?

Double watty gotto.

As it stands this forum is virtually unusable, it's only a matter of time before the other forums go the same way and then the whole site will be unusable. There is no other choice other than to upgrade.

In the short term is it not possible to disable the new user registration to the site?

Agreed.

Choosing between the inconveniences of upgrades and the current flood of spam should be easy <img src="http://www.catsailor.com/forums/images/graemlins/smile.gif" alt="" />

I do remember the discussions the last time the forum was upgraded though and understand Ricks statement. I subscribe to the philosophy of "if it is not broken, dont fix it" myself. Seems like there is something that should be fixed in the procedures for registering though.

I write web apps for a living. The rule is to keep updating, all the time anything that is facing the public. This forum uses an old version of UBBThread and probably an old version of PHP. Both have known vulnerabilities... Your only option is to upgrade.

But please, make a backup first, if something goes wrong with the upgrade we do not want to lose all the previous posts.

Looks like there is no choice. 3 pages of crap for 3 sailing posts.Too bad somebody can't send something to the bot that would shut it down,crash it, or something.

If there was more than one admin in this forum; they could have banned them ages ago.

Wow! We are now up to 6 pages of these bot attacks. This is the worst that I have seen since I joined this site. I am another that would like to be able to send something back to these bots to disrupt them.

You can change the order of the registration fields, or throw an extra step into the process to post or something along those lines, but the issue will continue to be a problme until the optical character recognition is implemented.

catsailor is clearly losing this war... the machines are taking over

Judgement day beckons!

Well, I guess I vote to do the upgrade. I fear loosing the ease of posting and the user friendliness of the site in doing so. This site is one of the easiest to use and navigate around and I would hate to loose that. I do not use catsailor.net because it is difficult to find what you want and I do not understand the way that it is layed out. I must say though that this round of attacks truly #%@*%.

I vote for the upgrade also.

How about temporarily denying enrolling any new members and locking out the obvious bot user names? At least until a fix is in place.

Simple solution is to have an active admin who just bans then within seconds. But the best solution is to upgrade.

YOu could go to moderator approval for all new members.

*Bump*

just do it

I run catsailor.org and I can tell you its no fun when these idiots take over your forum.

Just do it.

A forum, is a forum, is a forum. The graphics and some features will be a little different, all of the database content and layout will remain the same.

I apologize for this mess, but I hope it is now under control. Let's not panic.

Usually I am in charge of watching for this stuff and deleting and banning. But Rick and I were both gone Friday evening and all day Saturday. I was shocked when I saw the forum early Sunday morning.

Apparently, somebody has planted a spycam somewhere in the woods around our house to spy on Rick and me, so they know when we are not at home. Or else the bad guy is a sailor and is aware that most sailors are away from their computers sailing on the weekends. Most spam things like this seem to happen on the weekend.

Thank you Mary, that was scary!

Now what were we talking about? I couldn't hear you.<img src="http://www.catsailor.com/forums/images/graemlins/grin.gif" alt="" />
Thanks Mary!
J

Questions about upgrades and updates aside, this brings to mind again two important facts --

1. Nothing on the interweb can be depended on as being bullet-proof.
2. Those who are adept at riding herd are much appreciated.

Tip your waitresses.

We solved this... for the most part... in our forums by going to a manual activation of new users. Takes a bit more time and effort and some users who register on weekends wait a few days, but has kept the porn etc down.